Philadelphia Sixers' owner donates to former wrestling team

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Sixers' owner Josh Harris is taking philanthropy to a whole new level.

Harris is back in a familiar place, The Palestra where he is donating $1,000,000

to the wrestling team.

This is near and dear to his heart. Harris was a 118-pound wrestler at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1980s.

Thirty-two years after graduation, it feels like he never left.

"It floods back, the smell, I'm feeling the mat underneath my feet. And I can almost image being thrown to the ground here. Great to be back, being able to support the team I wrestled for, trying to make the team great again," Harris said.

Harris' donation will help renovate the facilities, buy equipment and assist with travel and recruiting.

His former Penn teammate, Roger Reina, who is now the coach says, he did backflips when he hit him with the news.

"Coming for a friend and former teammate to make that kind of commitment, it's just really personally very inspiring to mean. I'm incredibly grateful," Reina said.

Harris was 9 years old when he started wrestling and attributes his success in life to lessons learned wrestling here on the mat and at Penn.

"Both winning and losing when you're young, learning what that feels like, it didn't feel good. This is what drives me or on a quest to win an NBA championship. It is 29 other people who what to do it. They're all really smart. It's spending literally many hours a day on how to team build," said Harris.

A competitive Harris says the Sixers are getting closer to pinning down an NBA title.

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